Sunday, 28 August 2016

Undertale Multiverse: Restoring Dreams

Author's Note: This story is set in the Undertale Multiverse, the focus of this piece being set around Dream and Nightmare, who characters created by the artist Joku. There is also a reference to the character of Ink who was made by Myebi. If you don't already know some stuff about Dream, Nightmare and the Multiverse in general, this will probably confuse the heck out of you. The character of Echo is my own, though the overall design for Undertale was of course made by Toby Fox, and so he is in a way inspired by his work.

Echo!Sans

Before we get into the actual piece here's a little bit about Echo himself.
Echo is a Multiverse natural, meaning that he doesn't come from any apparent universe, and was born with the ability to travel between universes via the Void/Anti-Void. His large eyes (large for a Sans that is) are due to the fact that he sees the world through what he calls 'The Veil'. It's a bit like he can see in Infrared or Ultraviolet, except that he sees in Magic, due to the fact that in my head-cannon most magic has wave properties (yes, there are multiple kinds of magic in Multitale. I'll probably have to write a post about magical physics sometime).
Echo wanders the Multiverse and for the most part does not interact with it, preferring instead to meditate and contemplate the complex reality. However, after Nightmare betrayed Dream and turned him to stone, Echo began trying to find a way to bring him back. After this Echo simply became more and more involved, until 'current' times when he actively participates in fights against Error, Nightmare and others.
He does his best to remain somewhat reserved at all times, and unlike most Sans' he actually capitalises his dialogue (for shame I know!). He's a mute so he uses a kind of telepathy to speak.
I'll probably have to make a post on Multitale in more detail at some point, props after this one. Anyway, enough backstory, here's the actual piece.

The footsteps were quiet, well worn bindings muffling the
clack of exposed bones on the stone tiles. It came out as a series of soft
thuds, each coming at slow, steady intervals. The walker saw no reason to hurry
himself; the master of this house hadn’t visited it in a long time, and wasn’t
about to do so again in a hurry.

Echo took the time to let his glazed eyes wander over his surroundings.
It wasn’t uncommon for people to assume that he was blind, due to the pale blue
haze that covered his enlarged eyes, accompanied by the way he would sometimes
stare off into the distance. This wasn’t actually the case though. Echo saw
perfectly fine, it was just that he saw things in a different light to those
around him, both figuratively and literally.

The mute skeleton stopped in front of a pair of high wooden
double doors. The one on the left was a warm hazel with bright gold coating its
frame, while the door on the right was a midnight blue with running the length
of its edge. Echo’s calm stare became just a little sorrowful at the lighter
patch of wood on the left side. The gold and platinum cloud symbol had been
ripped torn from its place on the door. Where it was Echo wasn’t sure. Perhaps
it had been destroyed. The right door still bore its symbol of a silver
crescent moon, but the timber of the door itself had been viciously mauled,
deep gouges coating the dark blue surface.

Skeletons didn’t need to breathe, yet Echo still took a deep
breath before pushing the double doors open. Beyond them he gazed upon a vast
courtyard, exposed to the cool reflected light that bathed the surrounding
landscape. Monsters of most universes spent their repeated lives wishing desperately
to see the star patterned sky over Echo’s head, but the sky blue robbed wander
payed it no heed. Instead, his focus was rooted to the far end of courtyard.

There, coated now in shadows, was a stone platform that Echo
knew had once supported a great tree. Echo had never seen the tree with his own
eyes, having been born several years too late, but he had seen the spectacular
tapestry they still kept in the temple in Skytale. Of course, they had no idea
what the treasure they were keeping was, they had all forgotten long ago.

Now the tree was replaced with a diminutive stone figure,
hand outstretched to some unseen individual. As Echo approached he began to
find the features of the statue more and more uncanny. It was like looking into
a mirror of rock, albeit one dressed rather differently. The stone folds of a
cloak flew out behind the figure, captured in a wind that was no longer
present.

Echo had been expecting something, but he had to admit that
he hadn’t expected this. He stopped directly in front of the statue, gazing
directly into its eye-sockets. He looked sad. No, sad was too mild a word.
Distraught, yes, that was better. Water stains ran from the corners of the
statues sockets.

Echo blinked in surprise, before focusing as hard as he
could on the statue’s chest. It was faint, but it was there. A soul. It was
weak, weak with grief and the insidious magic that had coiled around it for the
last two decades.

Carefully-almost reverently-Echo laid a bandage wrapped palm
on the statue's forehead. Though the night stayed silent, a voice spoke calmly
to the statue, deep and cool. "Dream,"
it said, tone firm, "it's time to
wake up."

Echo let the feeling of warmth in his own chest bubble
upwards, filling him to the brim. He forced the feeling forwards, down his
humerus, through his ulna and radius, into his fingers and finally he poured
the feeling into the statue. A faint blue glow surrounded the sorrowful stone
figure, growing rapidly brighter, and brighter.

Echo’s gaze was intense as he funnelled more magic into this
one action than he had into anything before. His knees began to tremble, and it
as no surprise to him that when he finally drew his hand away, he collapsed to the
ground, panting for breath he did not need.

He never took his eyes off the stone statue. The glow was
now so bright that he had to squint, covering its entire body. “Come on, come on, please,” thought
Echo, “accept it. We need you!”

The skeleton’s eyes light up, the smile hidden by the scarf
wrapped around his lower jaw, as the magic went from blue, to a warm yellow.
There was the sound of stone cracking, as the magic flared so bright that Echo
had no choice but to look away.

As the intense flare subsided, Echo lowered the arm he’d
been using to protect his vision. The figure before him was no longer made of
stone. Instead he was real magic blood and bone again. The cloak, now affected
by gravity, drifted down to hang behind him, flapping slightly in the soft
night breeze. Two blank eye-sockets were filled with a pair of warm white orbs
that stared at Echo uncomprehendingly.

“Hello,” said
Echo, voice reverberating around the old structure in silence.

“h-hello?” replied the other, voice shaky. Upon seeing that
Echo was still on his knees after falling over, he quickly offered him a hand
up. The same hand he’d been holding outstretched for the last twenty years.
Echo’s smile became brighter, as he gladly took the orange gloved hand. It
hauled him to his feet with a strength that seemed to contradict the appearance
of its owner. The other skeleton was shorter than Echo by about half a head,
with a particularly round and naturally cheery looking skull.

“what happened?” he asked. “where, where is my brother?”

Echo’s smile froze, then fell away. “That’s something we’d all like to know,” he admitted. “It would be much easier to stop him anyone
could find him.”

“stop him?”

“Don’t you remember?”

“...yes.” The shorter skeleton looked forlornly at the paved
ground. “so, he really did it, did he?” he asked, head tilting up lock Echo’s
gaze, “he went to war with everyone.”

“Yes, that’s why I’ve
come to bring you back,” said Echo, expression adamant. “Dream, we need your help. I’ve been
hunting for you or some clue as to your fate for the past ten years. Ink is,
not doing too well.”

“but, Nightmare, what has he done?” asked Dream, clasping
both hands together in front of his chest.

“It’s a long story,” said
Echo. “I’ll bring you up to speed, but
we can’t do it here. He may be able to sense what I’ve done.”

Echo turned to open a portal, but stopped when a gloved hand
grasped his arm. “wait!” called Dream. “this, this is our home, isn’t it?” he
asked, looking around him at the long untouched courtyard. “what did he, what
did he do to...” His voice trailed off as his gaze fell upon the bare stone patch
where he’d just been frozen.

“no...”

“I’m sorry. As far as
I can make out, he ripped the Tree up and burned it,” explained Echo. “There’s no proof of course but, there’s no
reason to suppose otherwise. Please,” he continued, putting a hand on Dream’s
shoulder, “we can’t stay here.”

“r-right,” stammered Dream, voice weak. Echo nodded in
satisfaction as he turned away to face the tear in reality he’d made. As the
pair stepped through, Echo caught a faint whisper from his companion.

“i’m so
sorry.”

That's it so far. I'm probably going to post this on Fan Fiction.Net as well. Not sure if I'll continue on from this or leave it as a one-shot, we'll have to wait and see. Anyways, I'm the Lord of Silence: good luck and Godspeed.